How Do I Cope with Winners?

It is very strange that getting stressed and feeling anxious after your trades shifts to the way that you have never experienced before which is after finally you feel that you accomplished something.
Maybe it is a trader got used to the losings which he feels kind of comfortable and when his losings become winners, there you go "Culture Shock!!!".
Not alot of books mention about this problem, but from my experience it is something different from ego. After alot of winners suddenly I felt anxious and nervous that my future trades would be failers or feeling kind of "stealing" from the market. Did you guys feel the same thing once it clicked or when u r in the zone? I hope experienced trades will come forward.

Hi Togu:

What an enormous topic!

One of the richest men in the world, Ronald Perelman, was once asked by Forbes magazine, "What's the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire?"
His answer, "It's all in the head."

I agree with you it's only natural to not want to sabotage ourselves after a winning trade and let profits go down the drain. You took a good step in recognizing it can be a personal battle.

I can only give very vague advice and I still wish I was a Zen Master, too:
Completely divorce your own feelings, worries, and life's problems away from the Forex markets. The markets are totally indifferent to our emotional joys and sorrows. If you feel at all uneasy that you might lose in the near future...just take a break? Take a walk for a short while, write a forum post :-D.

We're are only puny human traders against a massive multi-trillion dollar machine. "When in doubt, stay out." (Until you feel ready to fight again.)

stress & anxiety are no good - they will shorten your lifespan.

If you are winning, keep doing what you are doing - keep winning. No need to let it go to your head - you will have a losing streak before too long, most likely. And when you are losing: stop losing. A sure fire way to do that is to stop trading. Then you can think about what you were doing and why you lost.

After you do enough trades (1,000's? 10,000's?) then you will have won and lost so many times that an emotional attachment to either outcome is not likely. Then it's just the same old sage advice: keep your losses small, let your winners be large. Sounds so easy....

Togu,

Congratulations!

Please remember winning is a habit; so is earning from the markets, and (more importantly) keeping those earnings.

Stop this nonsense about "stealing". You have earned it!!

First of all, pay yourself for success. Take the winnings out of your trading account. Reward yourself by spending some of the winnings on your near and dear ones, and, of course, yourself.

Bank the major portion of the winnings, at least until the time your mind truly accepts this is your money.

Meanwhile continue trading in exactly the manner which turned you into a winner. At all times keep you risk small. After a very long period during which I merely survived as a trader, I managed to become successful simply by reducing my lot sizes and reducing risk per trade.

Good luck.

Khalid

Thanks for the replies. Certainly I'm not a novice trader, but was BE trader I would say. I know how to cope with losing streaks, I know it hurts but most of the time my trading is kinda boring even losing/winning. I've read ALOT of ebooks, pdfs to improve my trading and I can certainly tell that almost every book that I read had mentioned the ultimate way of a succcess. But only few mentioned how to hang on to your success. lol

Yeah it seems like I was brought up with mentality "There is no easy money, and you EARN your money by working with hourly wages. Maybe now I have to change the way I was brought up. "no easy money=yeah it was HARD at the beginning", EARN Money by hard work=Yeah I've earned it with sleepless nights even did more Homeworks than at the college days"

That is the fact Togu, maintaining is more dificult than achieving
So if you have become a profitable trader, then write your system, and trade only by this rule, and keep on this.
this is my opinion, okay, may the pips be with you

Best Regards,

Jin Shan